Summary: The End of Zeitenwende

On February 27, 2022, in light of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz proclaimed a Zeitenwende, or turning point. According to Scholz, Germany would no longer be a passive economic power in the heart of Europe, but it would rather play a more active geopolitical role, remilitarizing, and supporting European security as part of NATO and the European Union. To bring this about, Scholz outlined five policy priorities:

Support Ukraine in its fight against Russia
End dependence on Russian energy supplies while continuing to pursue climate goals
End the policy of accommodation for authoritarian states
Strengthen Germany's role in the European Union and NATO, especially with regards to security
Reform and rearm the German military, which had been allowed to decay significantly in the long peace after the Cold War

To track Germany's progress in meeting these goals, the German Council of Foreign Relations (DGP) convened an Action Group Zeitenwende (AGZ), a two year collaboration between the DGP and a variety of international politicians and experts. Now, after two years, the AGZ has concluded its work and published a final assessment of Germany's progress in enacting Zeitenwende. The conclusions are sobering. Germany has fallen short of its goals in every single one of the policy priorities outlined by Chancellor Scholz in 2022. The AGZ report states that Germany should even abandon the use of the term Zeitenwende, as its policies since then have represented more continuity than change.

On Ukraine, Germany has failed to commit to Ukrainian victory. German contributions to Ukraine have lagged, as a percentage of GDP, compared to other states in Europe, notably eastern European states like Poland and Estonia. The aid that Germany has provided has often been delayed and haphazard, allowing Russian forces time to proactively adapt to new howitzers, tanks, rocket launchers, etc, before they reach the battlefield. Germany has also held back its most potent weapons, such as the Taurus missile, hampering Ukrainian forces' ability to strike at Russian supply lines and strategic targets. Now, the German finance ministry is hesitating to approve additional funding (archive) for Ukraine, causing whiplash among Germany's allies and frustration among Ukrainians.

Although German aid to Ukraine has been greater than that of laggards like France, or Italy, it is a mistake to use these countries as standards. Providing aid to Ukraine is more in Germany's interest than it is for France or Italy so why should the German government predicate its aid on French or Italian contributions? Germany should contribute to Ukrainian victory because doing is in German interests, not because it is following along with its allies. Scholz's failure to clearly support this as a priority is the first and foremost failure of Zeitenwende.

While Germany has reduced its dependence on Russian energy considerably, with the construction of two new LNG terminals to allow it to receive natural gas from overseas, German energy supplies are still precarious and dependent on authoritarian countries, such as Azerbaijan or Qatar. In addition, climate goals have not been met. Political resistance to nuclear energy, combined with reductions in gas imports, have lead to an increased use of the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal. Although the German government plans, in the long run, to phase out coal in favor of solar and wind, there will always be a need for steady-state generating capacity to fill in when renewable output drops. Ideally, this baseline generation capacity would be handled by nuclear but the aforementioned political resistance to nuclear energy means that it will likely be fulfilled by coal or imported natural gas.

Germany's renewable energy capacity is also increasingly dependent on another hostile authoritarian power, China, for cheap solar panels. In the event of a conflict between the US and China, Germany would be under severe pressure to cut ties with Chinese suppliers and cooperate with US sanctions. This would jeopardize Germany's clean energy transition, and would further endanger German energy security.

The German government could have addressed these vulnerabilities by embarking on a program of subsidizing local solar panel and wind turbine production, combined with an increased emphasis on nuclear energy. However, just as with aid to Ukraine, the achievement of German energy independence has been thwarted by an excessively cautious, incrementalist approach.

Lastly, Germany has also fallen short of its commitments to coordinate more closely with NATO allies and take greater responsibility for contributing to European security. The centerpiece of Olaf Scholz's Zeitenwende speech was a special €100 billion fund to rebuild German military capabilities, and a commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense, in accordance with NATO guidelines. While this fund is a solid down payment on Germany's military reconstruction needs, it should be viewed as just that: a down payment. German underinvestment in its military has been severe, and AGZ estimates that €600 billion of additional spending in total is required to elevate German capabilities up to a point where Germany can fulfill its stated ambitions for taking responsibility for European security. The special fund will be depleted by 2027, and it is not clear that the government has a plan to ensure that military funding will be sustained beyond that point.

The German government has also missed opportunities to coordinate with allies to improve European security. In the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion, Germany enacted domestic subsidies for natural gas and electricity without consulting with its allies, needlessly generating friction and potentially missing out on opportunities to improve European energy security as a whole. The German government has also resisted the creation of a pan-European defense funding mechanism, alienating Poland in particular, and once again missing out on opportunities to coordinate with allies to boost security.

There are two exceptions to German dissonance with broader European security initiatives. Firstly, Germany has committed to deploy a combat brigade to Lithuania. This reinforces NATO's eastern border, and signal's Germany's commitment to supporting its allies. The other exception is the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), a twenty-country program to jointly acquire air and missile defense systems for all of Europe. However, even these limited initiatives have caveats. ESSI doesn't include France or Poland, both of whom are pursuing their own air defense initiatives separately from ESSI. The German brigade deployed to Lithuania will deploy without any tanks, transport or logistics, severely hampering its utility in an actual conflict.

At this point, given the lack of progress on its goals, lack of future political commitment, and policies that offer more continuity than change, it would be better if the German government abandoned the term Zeitenwende. Instead, it would be better if the German government focused narrowly on three goals:

Supporting Ukraine to the fullest extent possible
Rearming the military
Decoupling from China

To do this, first the German government must support Ukraine with long-range weapons, such as Taurus missiles, that are free of artificial restrictions on where and when Ukraine may use them to defend itself. Germany could also enable additional financing for Ukraine's own burgeoning defense-industrial base, allowing Ukraine to defend itself more independently without having to rely on allied support for the provision and maintenance of advanced weapons.

The German government should also learn from the Polish government, and commit to placing long-term contracts for military systems. This would create a stable demand signal allowing German defense contractors to invest in additional production capacity. The government can also do much more to enable EU-wide coordination on defense and energy policy, ensuring that the EU responds to future challenges as a unified whole rather than 27 separate countries.

Finally the German government should set out a strategy for decoupling from authoritarian powers, such as China, rather than leaving it up to individual private sector actors to come up decoupling strategies on their own. This strategy should start with sectors critical to the future of the German economy, such as green energy and automotive, and could include a combination of subsidies for domestic producers and tariffs on imported goods.

Zeitenwende may be a failure, but it's not too late for Germany to take positive steps to secure its security and prosperity. A narrower set of policies, focused on rearmament and decoupling from authoritarian states is more achievable than Zeitenwende's grand goals, and would be easier for Germany to coordinate with its allies. It is long past time for the German government to carry out this reassessment.